As its name implies, an enterprise system spans across an enterprise for use by multiple users. Examples of an enterprise include but are not limited to a company, a corporation, an organization, and any other entity that is organized with multiple users. Examples of a user in an enterprise include but are not limited to an employee, a consultant, a system administrator, and any other personnel authorized to access the enterprise application. As referred herein, an enterprise system is an electronic system that includes one or more client machines (e.g., computers, servers, computing machines, and/or processing units), networked together or otherwise in communication with one another, running or executing software application(s) therein to solve one or more enterprise problems or perform one or more desired enterprise processes or tasks. Examples of an enterprise software application include but are not limited to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application for planning the use of enterprise-wide resources, a business intelligence application for providing report creation, data viewing, and data distribution in one or more databases of interest, and a supply chain management (SCM) application for efficiently planning, implementing, and controlling operations of the supply chain.
Because information available in an enterprise system and its operations may be proprietary to the enterprise, system security is typically implemented to ensure that only authorized users may access one or more sections (hardware and/or software) of the enterprise system. Security implementation for system users, client machines in the enterprise system, and enterprise applications therein typically involve many tasks which are repetitive and manual in nature. Furthermore, such security implementations often require experienced information technology (IT) experts or personnel. For example, typically when a new authorized user is to be added to the enterprise system, IT personnel such as a system administrator must manually enter the user's information into the enterprise system, verify the user's security status, and authorize the user to access one or more client machines and one or more software applications therein.
Consequently, in an enterprise that has multiple client machines running multiple enterprise software applications or multiple instances of a single enterprise application, security implementation can be a daunting undertaking that is repetitive, labor intensive, time consuming, and costly. Thus, proper security implementation for an enterprise system may be prohibitively high, and an enterprise may be forced to delay, shortcut, or avoid such a security implementation all together and avail its system to hacking or other attacks by unauthorized sources.
Accordingly, the conventional approach to security implementation for an enterprise system is not cost effective and may cause an enterprise to delay implementation of its software applications for better management of its operations in the fast-paced world.